Bill Maher Defends Chris Matthews, Says He’ll ‘Miss Him And A Lot Of Other People Will Too’

Bill Maher has been landing in hot water with his liberal fan base more and more recently. On Friday night, he went there again when he defended recently removed MSNBC host Chris Matthews. During his monologue for his HBO series, Real Time with Bill Maher, he talked about the mistake he thought the news network was making in forcing Matthews to step down. The Daily Beast reports Maher moved on to the subject of Matthews after opening the show with a bit about Donald Trump and his handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

Maher started off by saying he was going to miss the longtime political analyst. He added other people will miss Matthews as well. He then went after the network directly and managed to attack Democrats and liberals in the process.

“MSNBC used to run this thing: ‘this is who we are.’ Well, I didn’t like who you were this week, and I don’t think a lot of people who work there liked this ether, and I think this ‘cancel culture’ is a cancer on progressivism. Liberals always have to fight a two-front war. Republicans only have to fight the Democrats; Democrats have to fight the Republicans, and each other.”

Maher went on to claim that the uproar over what Matthews said in regards to Bernie Sanders and Nazis was just a “poor analogy.” When it came to Matthews not being able to tell the difference between a black candidate for the U.S. Senate from existing South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the comedian claims the analyst was basically branded a “Klansman.”

Maher finally turned his anger towards journalist Laura Bassett. She is considered to be the final straw against Matthews by some after she wrote an essay accusing him of harassment. Maher — as well as guest Caitlin Flanagan, who is described as an “anti-MeToo” movement columnist — then belittled Bassett and made it clear they thought she overreacted. The two seemed to forget that Bassett’s essay was not just about how Chris Matthews had treated her but how he had harassed other female guests on his show.

It was just a few days after the essay was published that Matthews announced he was leaving MSNBC.

Since going on the air with his defense of Chris Matthews, Bill Maher has come under fire on social media for his comments. That included pushback from Bassett herself on Twitter. Bassett started out by simply cursing at the Real Time host before expressing her dismay that people are upset a 74-year-old man was forced to quit after “being called out for 20 years of objectifying women in the workplace.”